From: , Worldwatch Institute, More from this Affiliate
Published April 1, 2008 09:40 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/33921

Ankara, Turkey's capital and second largest city, dried up last summer. Faced with low rainfall and a shrinking reservoir, the city of 4 million resorted to water rationing. Hospitals delayed surgeries. Stray dogs died in the streets. Mayor Melih Gokcek asked residents to "wash your hair, not your bodies" and came under heavy criticism for alleged water mismanagement.

In an effort to be better prepared for future droughts as well as the catastrophic dry spells expected to accompany climatechange, Turkey's leaders and the World Water Council (WWC), a multi-stakeholder group based in Marseilles, France, are proposing a global declaration on urban watermanagement strategies.

Authorities from nearly 40 cities met last week during World Water Day to draft the declaration, known as the Istanbul Urban Water Consensus. The statement recognizes the likely damaging effects of climate change on urban waterresources and calls on governments to properly fund adaptation plans. It encourages authorities to improve water availability through technological solutions, land-use reform, and greater collaboration with the business sector. The agreement also outlines specific targets, such as asking cities to set goals for preventing water loss and improving water treatment.

The declaration is expected to be ready for signature by October. In 2009, Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas will ask his counterparts around the world to adopt the statement at the fifth World Water Forum, a conference of industry, governments, and nongovernmental organizations to be held in Istanbul in March. "The attempt is to get as many mayors of cities as possible to sign on to a document saying...for water to have a greater priority," said Dani Gaillard, the forum's coordinator. "There's a need for much more political commitment with respect to water issues."

A quarter of the world's low income populations lack access to at least 20 liters of dependable water on any given day, a common measure of water poverty, according to the World Bank. Warming temperatures are melting glaciers that supply water for millions of people and changing weatherpatterns that affect water demand and supply. In its recent assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted, "it is very likely that negative impacts on sustainable development cannot be avoided."

A heightened focus on the public sector's role in water governance follows years of international financial institutions and governments supporting the opposite tactic: water privatization. But after escalating anti-privatization protests, including violent demonstrations at the last World Water Forum in Mexico in 2006, multinational corporations controlling water access is "no longer viewed as an acceptable approach," said Nancy Alexander, former director of the Citizens' Network on Essential Services, a populist advocacy organization.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47753/story.htm

http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/30740

BRASILIA (Reuters) - A senior Roman Catholic bishop criticized Brazil's government on Wednesday for energy and agriculture policies that he said were destroying the Amazon forest and threatening the livelihood of local populations.

"We cannot ignore deforestation by loggers who violate the country's laws and ... threaten tribal Indians and others who depend on (the Amazon)," said Bishop Guilherme Antonio Werlang in launching the church's annual Lent campaign to mobilize followers on issues of social concern.

The comments are likely to increase pressure on Brazil's government to rein in deforestation. Brazil is the world's largest Catholic country and the church remains highly influential despite falling membership.

Werlang's warning follows disagreement within the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva over increasing Amazon deforestation rates.

The environment ministry has blamed farmers and cattle ranchers for moving deeper into the forest in search of cheap land, while Lula and the agriculture ministry reject the charges. Between August and December an estimated 2,703 square miles, or two-thirds the annual rate for the 12 months ending in July 2007, were chopped down.

Increased sugar cane production, the raw material for the country's much-touted ethanol program, also drives crops and cattle further north into the Amazon, environmentalists say.

Mali's government and a Tuareg rebel group have signed a deal aimed at ending weeks of fighting in the remote north of the country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7330096.stm 

Libyan mediators say the truce commits the government to scaling back its forces in the north.

The rebels have agreed to releasing more than 30 soldiers they captured in attacks last month.

Libya has promised to support the development of the region which reporters say underlies the unrest.

The Tuareg are an historically nomadic people living in the Sahara and Sahel regions of north Africa.

Tuareg militants in Mali and Niger have been engaged in sporadic armed struggles for several decades, demanding greater regional autonomy and a greater share of national resources.

The Malian military has accused them of involvement in drug-smuggling.

From: Reuters
Published April 7, 2008 05:05 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/29980

MANILA (Reuters) - Climate change is one of the factors causing an increase in the incidence of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, the WorldHealthOrganization said on Monday.

At least 150,000 more people are dying each year of malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and floods, all of which can be traced to climate change, said Shigeru Omi, the head of the WHO's Western Pacific office.

More than half of those deaths are in Asia, Omi told reporters.

"Malaria-carrying mosquitos are now found in areas where there was no malaria before," he said, saying they were spreading to cooler climes from the tropics.

"For dengue, there are many other factors responsible for the rise of the mosquitos. But I am sure that climate change is certainly playing one of the many roles, that much we can say."

Malaria kills at least 100,000 people each year. WHO also estimates that there may be 50 million cases of dengue infection around the world every year, of which half a million will require hospitalization.

About 12,500 of the cases will be fatal.

Climate change is also causing sea levels to rise, rivers to dry up and weatherpatterns to become erratic, Omi said. Floods, drought and heatwaves are taking a toll on human health, he said.

Omi said the WHO is setting aside $10 million for an advocacy program to inform people and governments about the health dangers of climate change.

Less consumption of energy and advances in technology to lower carbon emissions will be crucial, he said.

"In my office, we don't wear neckties any more, unless it is a very formal occasion," he said, adding that this led to less use of air conditioning.

"There are many things ordinary citizens can do to avoid unnecessary use of electricity."

(Reporting by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

From: United Nations Environment Programme
Published April 7, 2008 08:14 AM

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?DocumentID=530&ArticleID=5764&l=en

Brussels -The illegal international trade in environmentally sensitive items such as ozone depleting substances, toxic chemicals, hazardous waste, and endangeredspecies is a serious problem with global impact. This scourge which affects all countries threatens human health, deteriorates the environment, and results in revenue loss for governments in some cases. In fact the illegal trade in wildlife can be as profitable as dealing in narcotics. Shawls made from the wool of Tibetan antelope, the sale of which is completely illegal, are sold for up to 20,000 Euros each, while caviar from endangered sturgeon approaches 8,000 Euros per kilo on the retail market. Added to this is the alarming rise in virulent wildlife diseases, such as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and avian influenza that cross species lines to infect humans and endanger public health.

Ozone depleting substances (ODS) such as those used in refrigeration and air conditioning systems not only destroy the earth's protective shield (the stratospheric ozone layer), but if released into the atmosphere also contribute to climatechange since they are also powerful greenhouse gases. Illegal trade in ODS has become a global phenomenon. Toxic waste too causes long-term poisoning of soil and water, affecting people's health and living conditions, sometimes irreversibly. Unscrupulous waste trade has become a serious concern since the 1980s and has now become a criminal offence under the Basel Convention on the "Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal". The waste may pass through several countries before reaching its final destination, making it more difficult to pinpoint responsibilities.

Mar 13th 2008
From The Economist print edition

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10853534 
China's hunger for natural resources is causing more problems at home than abroad

HERE is no exaggerating China's hunger for commodities. The country accounts for about a fifth of the world's population, yet it gobbles up more than half of the world's pork, half of its cement, a third of its steel and over a quarter of its aluminium. It is spending 35 times as much on imports of soya beans and crude oil as it did in 1999, and 23 times as much importing copper---indeed, China has swallowed over four-fifths of the increase in the world's copper supply since 2000.

What is more, China is getting ever hungrier. Although consumption of petrol is falling in America, the oil price is setting new records, because demand from China and other developing economies is still on the rise. The International Energy Agency expects China's imports of oil to triple by 2030. Chinese demand for raw materials of all sorts is growing so fast and creating such a bonanza for farmers, miners and oilmen that phrases such as "bull market" or "cyclical expansion" do not seem to do it justice (see special report). Instead, bankers have coined a new word: supercycle.

Not all observers, however, think that China's unstinting appetite for commodities is super. The most common complaint centres on foreign policy. In its drive to secure reliable supplies of raw materials, it is said, China is coddling dictators, despoiling poor countries and undermining Western efforts to spread democracy and prosperity. America and Europe, the shrillest voices say, are "losing" Africa and Latin America.

This argument ignores the benefits that China's commodities binge brings, not only to poor countries, but also to some rich ones, such as Australia. The economies of Africa and Latin America have never grown so fast. That growth, in turn, is likely to lift more people out of poverty than the West's faltering aid schemes. Moreover, China is not the only country to prop up brutish regimes. Witness the French troops scattered around Africa, some of whom recently delivered a shipment of Libyan arms to Chad's embattled strongman, Idriss Déby.

 US: April 8, 2008
WASHINGTON - Nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause more than slaughter and destruction -- it would knock a big hole in the ozone layer, affecting crops, animals and people worldwide, US researchers said on Monday.

Fires from burning cities would send 5 million metric tonnes of soot or more into the lowest part of Earth's atmosphere known as the troposphere, and heat from the sun would carry these blackened particles into the stratosphere, the team at the University of Colorado reported. "The sunlight really heats it up and sends it up to the top of the stratosphere," said Michael Mills of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, who chose India and Pakistan as one of several possible examples.

Up there, the soot would absorb radiation from the sun and heat surrounding gases, causing chemical reactions that break down ozone.

"We find column ozone losses in excess of 20 percent globally, 25 percent to 45 percent at midlatitudes, and 50 percent to 70 percent at northern high latitudes persisting for five years, with substantial losses continuing for five additional years," Mills' team wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This would let in enough ultraviolet radiation to cause cancer, damage eyes and skin, damage crops and other plants and injure animals.

Mills and colleagues based their computer model on other research on how much fire would be produced by a regional nuclear conflict.

"Certainly there is a growing number of large nuclear-armed states that have a growing number of weapons. This could be typical of what you might see," Mills said in a telephone interview.

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/47829/story.htm

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: April 6, 2008
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/world/americas/06brazil.html?_r=2&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin MANAUS, Brazil--- Some wore traditional headdresses, and some traveled by riverboat or canoe. But the dozens of "forest peoples" who descended on this capital of Amazonas State last week had a common goal of becoming bigger players in global climate talks.

A conference here that ended last Friday drew leaders of hundreds of indigenous groups in 11 Latin American countries and observers from Indonesia and Congo, the largest gathering of its kind, organizers said. They came to build a consensus for a plan in which wealthier countries would compensate developing countries for conserving tropical forests like the Amazon.

Such an international carbon-trading plan has been gaining momentum and was a central topic last December at a climate conference in Bali, Indonesia. Scientists generally agree that tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.

"There is a real sense that this potentially represents a huge opportunity for forest peoples to influence climate changenegotiations and create larger-scale incentives to stop deforestation and improve their living conditions," said Stephan Schwartzman of the Environmental Defense Fund in New York, who attended the discussions here.

On Friday, representatives from the 11 Latin American countries signed a declaration establishing the International Alliance of Forest Peoples and vowed to continue to push for a place at the table of climate change talks.

The Indonesian government has been promoting the idea of carbon trading at climate talks. But environmentalists see South America, where native populations have stronger legal claims to the land, as a major staging ground for building support for the concept.

...

Large-scale clearing of the Amazon forest — for wood, cattle-grazing and agricultural products like soybeans — is threatening the native people's traditional way of life. "The climate changes are a reality," said Manoel Cunha, chairman of Brazil's National Council of Rubber Tappers. "We have rivers that are unnavigable" and trees that no longer bear fruit, he added.

The plan, formally known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD, would involve payments by wealthy countries, principally the United States and European nations, to developing countries for every hectare, or 2.47 acres, of forest they do not cut down.

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

The Guardian,Saturday April 5 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/05/biofuels.food

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has called for a comprehensive review of the policy on biofuels as a crisis in global food prices - partly caused by the increasing use of crops for energy generation - threatens to trigger global instability.

"We need to be concerned about the possibility of taking land or replacing arable land because of these biofuels," Ban told the Guardian in Bucharest while attending this week's Nato summit. But he added: "While I am very much conscious and aware of these problems, at the same time you need to constantly look at having creative sources of energy, including biofuels. Therefore, at this time, just criticising biofuel may not be a good solution. I would urge we need to address these issues in a comprehensive manner."

... 

Some of the loudest criticism has come from within UN food agencies, which are struggling to keep up with commodity prices. Last month the World Food Programme issued an emergency $500m appeal to donors to help it meet its existing commitments to the world's hungry.

WFP officials say 33 countries in Asia and Africa face political instability as the urban poor struggle to feed their families.

http://www.enn.com/agriculture/article/34367

From: Reuters
Published April 9, 2008 07:32 AM

By Mayank Bhardwaj

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Food riots which have struck several impoverished countries could spread with shortages and high prices set to continue for some time, the head of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.

A combination of high oil and fuel prices, rising demand for food in a wealthier Asia, the use of farmland and crops for biofuels, bad weather and speculation on futures markets have pushed up food prices, prompting violent protests in a handful of poor states.

Jacques Diouf, director general of the Rome-based FAO, said on Wednesday during a trip to India that there was a growing risk of social instability in countries where families spent more than half their income on food.

"The problem is very serious around the world due to severe price rises and we have seen riots in Egypt, Cameroon, Haiti and Burkina Faso," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Five people have been killed in a week of demonstrations in Haiti over high food prices in the poorest country in the Americas, while unions in the West African nation of Burkina Faso called a general strike over soaring food and fuel costs.

"There is a risk that this unrest will spread in countries where 50 to 60 percent of income goes to food," Diouf added.

He said world cereal stocks were enough to meet demand for eight to 12 weeks, while grain supplies were at their lowest since the 1980s.

"This is due to higher demand from countries like India, China, where GDP grows at 8-10 percent and the increase in income is going to food," Diouf said after meeting India's farm minister, Sharad Pawar.

He said he was advising governments to invest in irrigation, storage facilities and rural infrastructure and increase productivity to meet the challenge of food scarcity.

Published online 2 April 2008 | Nature452, 508-509 (2008) | doi:10.1038/452508a

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080402/full/452508a.html

Claim that the challenge of cutting emissions has been underestimated is debated.

Quirin Schiermeier

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has grossly underestimated the challenges of reducing and stabilizing greenhouse-gas emissions, according to an influential group of climate-policy experts.

The scenarios produced by the IPCC assume that very substantial technological advances — leading to greater energy efficiency and reduced carbon dioxide intensity — will happen spontaneously, without extra policy measures (see page 531). Roger Pielke, Tom Wigley and Christopher Green argue that this is a "dangerously optimistic" assumption. To show its effects, the trio offer a contrasting 'frozen-technology' scenario, which assumes that future energy needs are met with technology available at the baseline year. They say that this demonstrates a need for new energy technologies as much as four times greater than that which seems to be required looking at some IPCC scenarios. Nature gets some reactions.

...

Fears that actual economic growth and energy use may develop in different ways than assumed in our scenarios are more justified. If so, it could be more difficult to reach low stabilization levels. The IPCC in 2006 initiated the development of new long-term scenarios. New scenarios will be developed over the coming years.

From: Reuters
Published April 9, 2008 07:54 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/34347 

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world is on course to halve extreme poverty by 2015, but Africa will fall far short of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

A new report by the global institutions also warned that urgent action was needed to tackle climatechange, which threatens to exact a hefty toll on particularly poor countries and reverse progress in fighting poverty.

The 2008 Global Monitoring Report, released ahead of the IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington this weekend, said strong economicgrowth in much of the developing world had contributed to the decline in global poverty.

 ...

Turning to the environment, the report said poverty reduction may not be sustainable if forests are lost, fisheries depleted, water or air is polluted and soil degraded.

It said water scarcity and deforestation were already a factor in the developing world and are valuable assets and sourcesofincome to poor countries.

"The depletion of natural resources and environmental degradation undermines the long-term growth prospects of many developing countries," the report said.

It called for coordinated global action to avert further climate change, adding that extreme climatic events such as droughts and floods in the world's poorest countries may also exacerbate conflicts and cross-country migration.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; editing by Tom Hals)

http://www.middleeastprogress.org/wp-content/themes/meb/newsletter.php

"These water woes concerns more than just the people of Egypt, Israel, Lebanon or Gaza. These are problems touching the international community. Unless duly addressed they will add to the region's already explosive problems in years to come."

Contents:

1. Middle East Water Woes, by Middle East Times, Editorial

2.Water Policies in the Gulf and Recent Initiatives, by Dr. Mohamed Abdel Raouf Abdel Hamid, Senior Researcher, Gulf Research Center (Khaleej Times)

3. Regional Cooperation - Making It Real, Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni, Interfaith Dinner in Celebration of Regional Cooperation honoring "The Middle East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC): A Joint Arab-Israeli Project to Solve Regional Water Problems," September 24, 2007

4.Carbon Emissions---What's All the Fuss About?, by Elizabeth Bains (ArabianBusiness.com)

5.Hopes Fade for Turkish Water as a Strategic Asset,by Gareth Jenkins (Eurasia Daily Monitor)

From: Reuters
Published April 11, 2008 09:05 AM

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/34492

RABAT (Reuters) - The Middle East is overusing limited water resources and the amount of water available per head will halve by 2050, leading to social strains as more people quit the countryside, the World Bank said on Thursday.

But a crisis can still be averted if governments seize the opportunity to repair water networks, build new infrastructure including desalination plants and educate people not to waste limited resources, according to a report by the bank.

The Middle East and North Africa, one of the world's most arid regions, consumes in excess of its already scarce resources in fresh water.

Declining water quality has already knocked around 1 percent off gross domestic product in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt and almost 3 percent in Iran, according to World Bank figures.

With the region's population set to soar and climate change expected to cut rainfall by 20 percent by 2050, the bank is calling for urgent reform.

"We've simply got to reduce the amount of water used, especially in agriculture which accounts for 85 percent of the total," Julia Bucknall, natural resource management specialist at the World Bank, told reporters in the Moroccan capital Rabat.

Water firms needed to cut water lost by evaporation and invest more in modern, efficient networks, she said. Farmers should shift to less wasteful irrigation techniques and cultures that bring more revenue per water consumed.

World Bank officials singled out Tunisia and Jordan as strong performers in managing water demand and making the most of available water.

"If we plan for the future, it's a lot simpler than crisis management further down the line," said Bucknall.

Much of North Africa has become increasingly dependent on grain imports as farm yields drop, the amount of viable farmland recedes and populations grow.

Morocco set an example since independence by capturing available rain with a network of dams, but in the farming-intensive Souss region around Agadir the water table has tumbled to 70 meters below ground from 10 meters in 1982.

(Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer; editing by Sami Aboudi)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080325/hl_afp/afghanistanresourceswater

Tue Mar 25, 2:18 PM ET

KABUL (AFP) - About 70 percent of Afghans do not have access to safe drinking water, a government minister said Tuesday at the opening of the first of a chain of hydrological stations to monitor water supply.

"Only 30 percent of people have access to the safe drinking water while in rural areas it's only 15 percent," Deputy Minister for Energy and Water Shojaudin Ziaie said at the event at Qargha dam just outside Kabul.

The Qargha hydrological station is the first of 174 to be erected across Afghanistan to measure water resources, including rainfall, as well as water quality and levels, Ziaie said.

The 6.8-million-dollar World Bank funded-project will help scientists collect data about water resources over a period of about two years.

After three decades of war, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and lacks basic infrastructure for its people.

It is also plagued by drought, with UN officials warning last month of new water shortages with winter rains and snowfalls not as heavy as necessary.

By Patrick McGroarty
Friday, April 11 2008
Source: Daily Times

A new partnership between the UN refugee agency and Google allows users of Google Earth search tool to track refugees in global conflict regions.

Nearly 35 million people across the globe have been uprooted by violence, political conflict and catastrophe. Now the United Nations is partnering with Google in a new effort to keep track of them.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees unveiled on Tuesday a multimedia system to monitor refugees in conflict regions using Google Earth, the internet search giant's global mapping software.

The new system works as a "layer" of multimedia tools that a Web user can place on top of Google Earth's interactive satellite maps. Google Earth has around 300 million users. The interactive system, available for download at unhcr.org/ googleearth, currently includes multimedia information on refugees and the persecution they face in three places: Colombia, Sudan's Darfur region and Iraq.

As a user drags her cursor across each region, she can read about the violence there that forced people from their homes, learn the name and population of nearby refugee camps and watch a series of video reports or photo essays.

For the full article, please visit: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C04%5C11%5Cstory_11-4-2008_pg4_2

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/business/worldbusiness/15food.html?ref=world

By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: April 15, 2008The idea of turning farms into fuel plants seemed, for a time, like one of the answers to high global oil prices and supply worries. That strategy seemed to reach a high point last year when Congress mandated a fivefold increase in the use of biofuels.

But now a reaction is building against policies in the United States and Europe to promote ethanol and similar fuels, with political leaders from poor countries contending that these fuels are driving up food prices and starving poor people. Biofuels are fast becoming a new flash point in global diplomacy, putting pressure on Western politicians to reconsider their policies, even as they argue that biofuels are only one factor in the seemingly inexorable rise in food prices.

In some countries, the higher prices are leading to riots, political instability and growing worries about feeding the poorest people. Food riots contributed to the dismissal of Haiti's prime minister last week, and leaders in some other countries are nervously trying to calm anxious consumers.

At a weekend conference in Washington, finance ministers and central bankers of seven leading industrial nations called for urgent action to deal with the price spikes, and several of them demanded a reconsideration of biofuel policies adopted recently in the West.

...

Skeptics have long questioned the value of diverting food crops for fuel, and the grocery and live- stock industries vehemently opposed an energy bill last fall, arguing it was driving up costs.

A fifth of the nation's corn crop is now used to brew ethanol for motor fuel, and as farmers have planted more corn, they have cut acreage of other crops, particularly soybeans. That, in turn, has contributed to a global shortfall of cooking oil.

Spreading global dissatisfaction in recent months has intensified the food-versus-fuel debate. Last Friday, a European environment advisory panel urged the European Unionto suspend its goal of having 10 percent of transportation fuel made from biofuels by 2020. Europe's well-meaning rush to biofuels, the scientists concluded, had created a variety of harmful ripple effects, including deforestation in Southeast Asia and higher prices for grain.

                                                          
  For an official reader-friendly overview of the assessment, please visit                       
 www.greenfacts.org/en/agriculture-iaastd/,                                                                                   
 International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development     
                                                                      
 Washington/London/Nairobi/Delhi, 15 April 2008 - The way the world grows its food will have to
 change  radically  to  better serve the poor and hungry if the world is to cope with a growing
 population and climate change while avoiding social breakdown and environmental collapse. That
 is  the  message  from  the report of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and
 Technology  for  Development  (IAASTD),  a  major  new  report by over 400 scientists which is
 launched today.                                                                               
                                                                                  
 The   assessment  was  considered  by  64  governments  at  an  intergovernmental  plenary  in
 Johannesburg last week.                                                                       
                                                                       
 The  authors'  brief  was  to  examine  hunger,  poverty, the environment and equity together.
 Professor  Robert  Watson  Director  of IAASTD said those on the margins are ill-served by the
 present  system: "The incentives for science to address the issues that matter to the poor are
 weak...  the  poorest  developing  countries  are  net  losers under most trade liberalization
 scenarios."                                                                                   
                                                                               
 Modern agriculture has brought significant increases in food production. But the benefits have
 been  spread  unevenly and have come at an increasingly intolerable price, paid by small-scale
 farmers, workers, rural communities and the environment.                                       
                                                                                    
 It  says  the  willingness of many people to tackle the basics of combining production, social
 and  environmental goals is marred by "contentious political and economic stances". One of the
 IAASTD co-chairs, Dr Hans Herren, explains: "Specifically, this refers to the many OECD member
 countries  who  are deeply opposed to any changes in trade regimes or subsidy systems. Without
 reforms here many poorer countries will have a very hard time... "                             
                                                                                     
 The  report  has  assessed  that  the  way  to  meet  the  challenges lies in putting in place
 institutional, economic and legal frameworks that combine productivity with the protection and
 conservation  of  natural resources like soils, water, forests, and biodiversity while meeting
 production needs.                                                                             
                                                                                   
 In  many  countries,  it  says, food is taken for granted, and farmers and farm workers are in
 many  cases  poorly  rewarded  for  acting  as stewards of almost a third of the Earth's land.
 Investment directed toward securing the public interest in agricultural science, education and
 training and extension to farmers has decreased at a time when it is most needed.             
                                       
 The  authors  have  assessed  evidence across a wide range of knowledge that is rarely brought
 together.  They  conclude  we  have little time to lose if we are to change course. Continuing
 with current trends would exhaust our resources and put our children's future in jeopardy.     
 

Professor  Bob  Watson, Director of IAASTD said: "To argue, as we do, that continuing to focus
 on  production alone will undermine our agricultural capital and leave us with an increasingly
 degraded  and  divided planet is to reiterate an old message. But it is a message that has not
 always  had  resonance in some parts of the world. If those with power are now willing to hear
 it,  then  we may hope for more equitable policies that do take the interests of the poor into
 account."                                                                                     

Professor Judi Wakhungu, said "We must cooperate now, because no single institution, no single
 nation, no single region, can tackle this issue alone. The time is now."                       

About the IAASTD

This international assessment addresses how to make better use of agricultural science,       
 knowledge and technology to reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and foster   
 equitable and sustainable development.                                                         
 

The assessment represents a three-year effort by about 400 experts around the world, working   
 under the auspices of 30 governments and 30 representatives of civil society. The latter       
 include non-governmental organizations, producer and consumer groups and international         
 organizations.                                                                                 

The assessment was sponsored by the United Nations, the World Bank and the Global Environment 
 Facility, an independent financial organization that provides grants to developing countries. 
 Five U.N. agencies were involved: the Food and Agricultural Organization, the U.N. Development
 Program, the U.N. Environment Programme, the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural         
 Organization and the World Health Organization. Additional individuals, organizations and     
 governments participated in a peer review process.                                              

For more information, see www.agassessment.org, which includes the opening statement to the   
 IAATSD meeting in Joahnnesburg last week by UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.             
                                                                                               
                                                                                               

BOSTON GLOBE

                                                                           
 THE PAPAL VISIT                                                           
                                                                    
 By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff  |  April 15, 2008                         
                                                                           
                                                                           
 WASHINGTON - As he begins his historic visit to the White House and the United Nations this week, Pope Benedict XVI is widely expected to call     
 attention to two areas in which he has been at odds with the Bush administration: The need for urgent action on global warming and the       
 humanitarian cost of unjust wars, according to Catholic leaders and people familiar with Benedict's papacy.                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
 Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican's permanent observer to theUnited Nations, said in response to a Globe inquiry that in his UN speech 
 on Friday, Benedict "won't necessarily touch upon specific crises in the world: unfortunately, they are too many to be dealt with in a few minutes.
 However he will insist on the moral imperative that all, without exception, have a grave responsibility to protect the environment."

He did not say whether Iraq would be mentioned.

Despite their disagreements, President Bush has gone out of his way to welcome Benedict, with plans to greet him in person when he arrives at     
 Andrews Air Force Base this afternoon, and then to have a private  discussion in the Oval Office for 45 minutes tomorrow morning. It will be 
 only the second visit by a pope to the White House, after Pope John Paul  II met with President Carter in 1979.                                     
                                                                           
                                                                           
  ...
 Church officials and others familiar with Benedict's papacy say they       
 expect the pope to address the subject of humanitarian suffering in Iraq   
 again with Bush during his US visit. They also said that Benedict's recent
 statements on global warming and the environment lead them to believe that
 he will highlight the issue during his US visit.                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
 "He looks at the environment as a moral issue, where we look at it as a   
 partisan political issue," said Ray Flynn, former Boston mayor and former 
 US ambassador to the Vatican, who knew Benedict before he became Pope and 
 met with him recently in Rome. "He believes the environment was given to   
 us by God and it belongs to everybody, that people in political office     
 have a responsibly as caretakers in that office, they cannot vote it       
 away."                                                                     
                                                                           
                                                                           
 Global warming is another area where US foreign policy and the Vatican     
 have diverged. Throughout most of his administration, Bush has resisted UN
 efforts to mandate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, although he has
 recently softened his stance.                                             
  ...

Since Benedict became pope in 2005, the Vatican has hosted a scientific   
 conference on climate change, agreed to participate in a program that will
 plant a forest to offset its own carbon footprint, and fitted buildings in
 Vatican City with solar panels. Last month, the Vatican issued a statement
 including pollution among the list of modern sins.                         
  ... 

Walter Grazer, the former director of the Environmental Justice Program at
 the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, who now works with an interfaith   
 environmental advocacy effort, said he was surprised by how much attention
 Benedict has given the issue.

Source: CARE
Date: 17 Apr 2008

Geneva, April 17, 2008 - An estimated 14 million people in the Horn of Africa are facing a food emergency just two years